


Hairline Fractures

by MiladyDeWinter (Techno_Queen)



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Character Study, Constructive Criticism Welcome, Gen, Introspection, Wars Suck, Winter Suzerain Jack, depressed/empty Jack, pointless one-shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-20 04:53:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13710246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Techno_Queen/pseuds/MiladyDeWinter
Summary: "He knows he is breaking, hairline cracks creeping along the surface of his soul, yet he deceives  himself, telling himself that he is fine, that he will be all right. Lies, all lies, and yet lies are all he has left to fix what’s broken and mend what’s torn.""If you lie, and lie, and lie again, than do the lies eventually become the truth?"





	Hairline Fractures

"The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly." — F. Scott Fitzgerald 

~=~

Jack feels tired.

Not the good tired, the tired that comes from hours of hard physical work, or long studying, or any other productive and energy-sapping activity. No, this is the tired that you feel even minutes after waking up, the exhaustion that drags at your mind but left your body untouched, the empty fatigue that prevents you from doing anything worthwhile and that all the rest and sleep in the world can’t obliterate. It is the weariness that walks hand-in-hand with depression, that plagues you for days and nights until finally, _finally_ it goes away, only to eventually return later.

That is the tired that Jack feels. An endlessly drained feeling that leaves him empty and devoid of the spark of Joy and Fun he usually possesses. A gray, blank emotion that makes him want to curl up somewhere and hide away from the world.

Coincidentally, he is doing just that, crouching like a bird on top of some power-lines that are located three miles north of Nowhere. The power-lines run along the length of a small, insignificant country road, and occasionally a car drives down its length, all light and noise that contrasts sharply with the silence and darkness of night, that fights the shadows only to flicker out of sight like a dying candleflame when the vehicle rounds the bend a few meters away.

It is places like these that he normally seeks when he is feeling empty. Places that are peaceful in their solitude, but not oppressive, places where he can be near life and action without being a part of it. It is soothing to watch the cars whoosh by, almost relaxing even, and temporarily, he can forget the red stains splattered on his clothing and the long, unhealed cut running down his arm and drooling thick, glutinous blood.

For a moment, he forgets, and so the events of three weeks past no longer exist to him.

_If a tree falls and there is no one to hear it, then does it make a sound?_

Reality can be a harsh and cruel being, however, ripping one from sweet fantasies and dragging one down to the level of cold, mundane facts. Though he is allowed to forget for a little while, he can’t ignore the problem forever, and sooner or later he will be forced to face his demons.

Alone. As he always did. But no matter, he can handle it. He always handled it.

_If something breaks, and no one notices, and it is fixed in the meantime, than was it ever broken at all?_

Absent-mindedly, he trails his fingers over the wound on his arm, gaze still fixed on the passing cars, wincing slightly when he prods the wound too harshly for his body’s liking. He knows he should fix it, knows he should frost it over and mend it and hide it and pretend it never existed, but he feels too tired to do so, too damn exhausted.

A part of him, the broken twisted part that is irreparably damaged by centuries of solitude and hardship, whispers to him that he _deserves_ the pain of an unhealed wound. He is quick to deny it, telling himself it was false, that he did his best, that he merits neither rebuke nor complaint for his actions. He did what he could to minimize the damages, even at the risk of losing his own life. And yet, his fingers still dig harshly into the wound, drawing a pained flinch from him, and he does not relent, not even when chilled blood stains his pale fingertips.

Deep down, no matter how he tries to convince himself otherwise, he knows he deserves the pain.

_If you have no choice but to kill, no recourse but to destroy, than are you still a murderer?_

War is a ghastly thing, a terrible thing, something that rips people and families apart, that pits complete strangers against each other while ordaining that one should die at the hand of the other. War is a tragedy, a horrific twist of fate that toys with people’s lives and leaves them to pick up the mangled pieces of their existence afterwards.

Today, Jack Frost has killed hundreds of spirits, all in the name of war.

He had no choice, of course. Killing is not something that comes to him naturally, no matter what everyone else says. He was obliged to participate in the bloodshed, to rally the Winter Court so they could defend themselves against the oncoming attack. As Suzerain of Winter, it is his responsibility to protect his people.

This knowledge fails to make him feel better, strangely.

_If you have no choice but to do wrong, than are you still evil?_

Oh certainly, it is not the first time he has slain another. It is not the first (nor will it be the last) war that the Winter Court has weathered, and many a human besides fell victim to his blizzards over the years. But not to this extent, not to the point where he has lost count of the number of lives who fell on the wrong side of his sword, not to the point where he can no longer tell the exact number and instead has to resort to vague approximations. 

A part of him feels irrationally guilty for not knowing. He should be mourning them, should carry every life lost like a scar carved in his heart, should regret every life he snuffed out of existence. He shouldn’t be seeing them merely in the form of an abstract number; he should know each and every one of them, should know their names so he could brand them in his memory and remember them for the remainder of his life.

He shouldn’t be passively allowing the memories to disappear, and yet he is too tired to resist. 

_If there is no one left to remember a life lost, than did that life ever exist in the first place?_

He will recover, however. Despite his best efforts, he will move on, slowly forgetting about the lives he extinguished, the deaths ascribed to his name. Despite the occasional minor setback, he will continue forward, inexorably forward, until the end of his pitiful existence, for it has never been in his nature to brood over one thing for long. He will neglect the past, like all people eventually do, until such a time as he will kill again and the cycle will recommence.

He is fine.

This too, fails to comfort him.

_If you move on, putting the past behind yourself, are you forgetting?_

That is all right, however. He does not deserve comfort, does not merit pity. He is a killer, cold like the ice he wields so masterfully, and killers do not earn the right to be consoled. His inability to feel better is only karma doing its work, chipping away little by little at his heart until soon there will be nothing left.

_If you kill, and kill, and kill again, do you eventually lose your heart?_

His fingers claw deeper at the wound, the blood spreading on his sleeve as he stares down at the cars roaring by, and no one cares. Not even himself, for he is past the point of caring, past the point of giving a solitary damn about his pathetic self.

He knows he is breaking, hairline cracks creeping along the surface of his soul, yet he deceives himself, telling himself that he is fine, that he will be all right. Lies, all lies, and yet lies are all he has left to fix what’s broken and mend what’s torn.

“I’m fine.”

_If you lie, and lie, and lie again, than do the lies eventually become the truth?_

~=~

He does not know how many hours he has stood on those power-lines, but by the time he returns to his senses, it is long past dawn and venturing into mid-morning. 

He has work to so, he realizes. He must help the Winter Court recover from the blow that war has dealt. He must assist in the tallying of the dead, the repairs of the Winter Palace, and the digging of the graves. 

Groaning, he stands, joints creaking from his hours of immobility. The gash on his arm is long clotted, frost and ice helping to close the injury, bloody frost ferns spread along his sleeve. Soon, the cut will vanish, as all lacerations do, even those which mar the heart and soul.

Just because one no longer sees or feels them, however, does not mean they were never there. Like ghosts, they will haunt him until the end, whenever that may be. He has resigned himself to this, though. He will always hurt, always feel pain, always suffer from the agony of some part of him long shattered. 

That doesn’t mean that anyone has to know, or even care, no matter how obvious his silent cries for help may be.

_After all, if a tree falls and it makes no sound, than doesn't that mean that there was no one around to hear it?_

**Author's Note:**

> I currently feel a lot like Jack does: cold, empty, and blank. My life has been remarkably tough lately.
> 
> Constructive criticism welcome.


End file.
